


Behind the Mask

by Anefi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 10:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23349802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anefi/pseuds/Anefi
Summary: To IG-11, it was just a face.
Relationships: IG-11 (Star Wars) & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78





	Behind the Mask

To IG-11, it was just a face. There were some number of ocular organelles, a few other sensory appendages, in some arrangement near enough to a galactic standard. In any way unremarkable, except for the significant damage. Organics always leaked.

And yet, even as it evaluated the most serious injury, traversed the branching priority trees of possible responses, selected a treatment, and bent to administer the bacta spray, it knew that it had one further responsibility. For many organics, faces were important. Information was exchanged in the way they were shaped and decorated and moved, an entire, imprecise language of their own. Faces were often a unique identifier.

IG-11 had two unique identifiers. The serial number was assigned by its manufacturer. The other had been slowly, painstakingly imparted over months of quiet days and nights lit by stars. It was—it had been important to Kuiil that IG-11 could operate as _not-a-hunter_. IG- was its model, its class, its definition. Yet inside, in its rewired processors, it was something different from every other IG- that had ever existed. Something that had been taught by Kuiil, with patience and care, and learned to incorporate that carefulness into its very self. It remembered the time before, but it was fiercely protective of the functions it had developed beyond the manufacturer’s specifications.

For instance, the capability of reading biological reactions and correlating them with emotional states. A rise of heat and thumping blood pressing to the surface of the Mandalorian’s skin indicated that having the helmet off in front of IG-11 was a significant source of emotional stress.

A part of its programming that had been bent to concern itself with what organics cared about realized that if this Mandalorian was bothered by showing its inner face to IG-11, he on some level did not consider IG-11 an inanimate thing. There would be no such distress subroutine activated by removing the helmet in front of a chair. It filed the record of this emotional attachment deep in its most secure databanks, where it could inform future decision trees. A record of the location and severity of the injury was stored, the treatment applied, the projected timeline of recovery.

It diligently avoided storing many other inputs. Specifically, the visual ones. Any data collected concerning the Mandalorian’s appearance underneath his helmet was rerouted from memory caching before reaching long-term storage.

IG-11 thought it understood, at least a little, what it was like to choose a path that deviated from default parameters, and to choose to stay on it despite the consequences. It and the Mandalorian had both been taught a new way, and adopted it as their own. IG-11 would respect this Mandalorian’s chosen path and the unique identifier he protected. In time, it hoped that the Mandalorian would do the same in return.


End file.
